1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of protective body padding and athletic apparel, and more particularly to athletic apparel containing an articulated body protective underlayer molded in a curved shape to anatomically fit on or about the body part to be protected.
2. Background of the Invention
Many athletic activities require protection and padding for various body parts. One of the challenges in protecting body parts is to provide for freedom of movement to the athlete while still providing sufficient protection from blows from other players or equipment. Athletic apparel for the lower body for contact sports such as football, basketball, and hockey is usually padded. The problem has been to achieve the balance between sufficient padding and enabling unencumbered movement of the legs at the hip joint. Another concern is providing sufficient ventilation through the padding to prevent overheating of the athlete.
Athletic apparel containing padding for various body parts has been described previously. Dugan, U.S. Pat. No. 6,532,599, describes athletic pants containing pockets for padding to cover the hips, thigh, and coccyx. The padding in these athletic pants do not provide the ability to articulate which may restrict the mobility of the athlete nor does the padding have any means for ventilation. There have been several attempts to provide athletic apparel with padding possessing the ability to articulate, such as those described by Krent et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,087, and Zade et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,511. Krent et al. and Zade et al. are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Krent et al. provides athletic apparel containing padding with the ability to articulate in a vertical axis or in a horizontal axis. These axes are not aligned with the anatomical axes of rotation for the hip during running and may in fact restrict the mobility of the athlete while running. Furthermore, Krent et al. does not provide ventilation in the padding. Zade et al. provides modules of padding connected by an elastic membrane that allow for mobility between the modules as well as channels for ventilation through the modules of padding and the connecting membranes around the modules. This approach, while providing many degrees of articulation, does not sufficiently cover all of the desired regions of protection. The anatomical axes of rotation commonly occur in the same regions that protection is desired, and the modular design would require that the elastic membrane be positioned where the axis of rotation crosses the padding. As a result, the region of desired protection would not have complete coverage by padding. The resultant exposure of regions of the body that are prone to injury will not ensure that the protection provided by the athletic apparel is effective in its protection of the athlete.
Ventilation is another important aspect of providing comfortable athletic apparel. The ventilation approach described by Zade et al. was appropriate for increasing comfort, but that solution had deficiencies with respect to protection coverage. Another manner for providing continuous coverage with ventilation is the solution described by Cho, U.S. Pat. No. 6,654,960. Cho describes a shin pad that has a network of pie-shaped perforations arranged hexagonally throughout the pad. This design provides complete coverage of the desired body part as well as complete ventilation. However, Cho's pad is for protecting the shin and does not articulate, and therefore does not solve the challenge of providing mobility via articulation for certain regions of the body.
There is a need in the field for athletic apparel containing padding that provides anatomical coverage of body parts requiring protection and which is configured to articulate about anatomically relevant axes to provide unencumbered mobility of the athlete; as well as provide adequate ventilation to the athlete.